Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Warriors time to expose yourself

Warriors,
Are you ready to face the world as your authentic self?

Do you know who you are?

As children, we are conditioned to act a certain way to receive love and validation. As adults, we desire the right to be ourselves...completely ourselves, but we do not always possess the tools or skills to do so. We are caught up in a pattern or a habit.

It happens.

Here's an exercise, take out a piece of paper and in "Conversations with God" manner, ask yourself this question:

"Who are you?"
Write down the answer.

Then ask yourself this question:
"Who is the person who wrote that down?"

Write down the answer.

Then ask yourself:
"Who is the person who is that thing you just wrote down?"
Write down the answer.

Keep going until your head explodes.

This is a way of getting through the layers of unconscious reacting based on the NEED for love and validation. As you get deeper, you will see a more authentic answers appear. If you keep going, you will ultimately get to a truth that has nothing underneath it. It is the core essence of who you are.

Unless your head explodes first.

As you begin to really know who you are, you will begin to attract more of the authentic abundance that is rightfully yours. When we practice the art of manifestation, if you aren't authentic in your being, how can you create what you truly desire?

Harv says, "How you act is what you attract."

Who are you acting like?

So ladies and gentleman, take the old dusty black trench coat out of the closet and head down to the old folks home or the cow pasture. Practice exposing your authentic self to the beings who are going to give you the most authentic reaction.

If you are afraid to do this, you are still living in a past memory...and it holds no happiness, abundance or future for you. Ask for help, get some coaching and face your dragon.

My love to you,
Aaron

Warriors and the economy

Warriors

In 1933 Fred Astaire was thrown out of a screen test audition. They said, "Can't act, slightly bald, can dance a little." He kept that note over his fireplace in his Beverly Hills home.

At the age of 52, Ray Kroc sold his first hamburger. Instead of retiring, he began to open a fast food chain...Mc Donalds.

He became completely reclusive when his older brother was killed in WWII but found solace in the radio. He began to envision himself as a DJ and went on to be THE DJ...Dick Clark.

Walt Disney went bankrupt several times...

The world's wealthiest novelist, J.K. Rowling, was on welfare raising her little girl when her agent called to tell her that Bloomsbury would publish her book about an adolescent wizard named Harry Potter.

Despite being rejected with 32 previously-rejected scripts Sylvester Stallone wrote "Rocky" in 3 days, went broke trying to sell the script (wife left him and he had to sell his dog to eat...), finally sold it, bought his dog back, and got 10 Oscar nominations. He read the rejection letters at the Oscars.

What's your story going to be? What are the struggles that you have had to face to achieve what you know you are here to achieve?

What legend will they tell about you? How will they reference your name to describe how to act when the chips are down? What example will you set?

Are you living in a state of ACTION or REACTION to the current economy?

If it's reaction, turn off the damn TV and do what you know you have to do to fix your situation. Don't focus on what you should of done with your money, the past holds no secrets to happiness. Only the now can make a difference.

Stop giving weight and energy to the financial "crisis". Everyday you must focus your intentions on what you know to be real in your heart. Especially now.

And for crying out loud...never give up. The alternative sucks.

To your Truth,
Aaron

The master and the butterfly

Warriors,

Once there was a master who's students were very feared for their strength and speed. They trained day and night to please the master who just sat through each practice with his eyes closed. The students wanted to be seen and known by their master more than anything.

They broke boards and shingles and river rocks...

They bent and snapped spears against their throats...

They caught arrows in flight blindfolded...

Their kicks were highest and fastest in all the land...

The students began to make a name for themselves patrolling the streets and rousing bandits from their work and carting them to jail...

They began to fight in the military and many of them came back from campaigns heroes...

Still, the master seemed to not notice them.

One day after a particularly harsh workout, the master sighed deeply and stood in front of his students.

"You have missed the point of martial arts."

The students were aghast and even deeply offended..."How can you say that master? We have brought glory to the name of your school with our skills and prowess in battle! Our names are feared thought the criminal world! We are the strongest and fastest martial artists in all the world? How could that be if we have missed the point?"

The master said this,

"The art of war is but a stepping stone to the art of peace. You are great warriors now...but what next? Can you use your body for something other than the good fight?"

His students said, "What else is there master?"

The master walked up to a brick wall and said, "On the other side of this wall hovers a butterfly pulling nectar from a flower. I can feel the beating of it's wings so gentle that to touch them would be to destroy them. I can feel it's thoughts so gentle that to interpret them would be to destroy their simpleness. My fist is harder than this wall, yet I can hold the delicate butterfly in my hand and my heart."

With that, the master punched though the brick wall with the speed of lightning. He removed his hand from the crumbling hole, held his fist out to his students and slowly opened it. A butterfly, unharmed, slowly opened and closed it's wings and then lightly flew away.

The students began the path of the gentle warrior.

You can fight the good fight and open your heart to each who would seek justify their own fear and anger.

Strength alone is not enough. Endurance is not enough. Skill is not enough.

Love is.

To your gentle battle ahead,
Aaron

Whats your Crutch

Warriors,
Last week, one of the teens talked about an experience he had where he and a group of friends took some mushrooms, and sat in the woods for 5 hours laughing, watching the trees, the ground and the sky twist into each other, began to understand oneness...felt true connectedness and let the sun pass while they tried to figure life out.

Then he asked, "How is that a bad thing?"

I said, "How's the rest of your life going?"

He replied, "OK, I guess."

I said, "If the only time you see and feel those things is when you are on drugs, if the only time you feel truly connected to your friends and contemplate oneness, you're high...if the only time that you take a minute (Or 5 hours) to connect with nature, you're wasted...how can that be a good thing?"

What is your crutch? What is the thing or person or place you use to achieve a balance or experience a connectedness to all things?

Do you have to be in "church" to really feel God?

Do you have to watch a comedy to really laugh out loud?

What things outside of us do you clutch on to because the MAKE yourself feel a certain way? What is your catalyst or your leaping of point to experience potential, power or purpose?

Could you take the feelings of joy and connectedness, the feelings of oneness with nature and God (Goddess) and feel them right now? In front of your computer reading this, could you ponder the endless possibility and completeness of your own divine spirit?

Or do you need a crutch? What would make it EASIER on you to feel these things?
Can you mix the mundane and the divine... find yourself practicing the most absurd and heart-opening moments in the middle of your hum drum, lah-de-dah, ho-hum, same-ole same ole...you can bring your connection to our highest potential to EVERYTHING. All things point back to center.

You can't always be in the Temple...unless you are the temple.

How would you act if your were always in the temple?

I love you all so much,
Aaron

Friday, February 27, 2009

Warriors,

I first met my wife because her son was one of my martial arts students. He got in trouble at school for practicing his sword technique on the playground with a stick...alone, not threatening to anyone...but the teachers felt unsafe and he was sent to the principals office and his mother was called in because of his violent behavior.

He was 7 years old.

Any teacher that feels unsafe around a 7 year old shouldn't be a teacher.

Regardless, his mom called me and brought him to my adult class where we studied very intense techniques. She asked that I speak to him about his behavior at school.

I asked him, "Why did you get in trouble?"
Dylan said, "Because I was sword fighting on the playground."
I asked, "Who were you fighting?"
His face lit up, "I was St. Michael...I was battling the Dragon!"

His mom, who is now my wife, commented how no-one had bothered to ask him that question. Only judged him on being violent.

In that battle, raging in his mind...was he violent?

Consider this:
-A 12 year old boy broke the nose of a would-be kidnapper and got away...
-A 8 year old girl kicked a kidnapper in the shins and got away...
-The woman who owns my martial arts studio took on 2 kidnappers in a parking lot while the third one fled in the van they were going to put her in...the two kidnappers were hospitalized and all three were arrested and incarcerated...
-In WWII 72 million deaths total...with 416,800 American soldier deaths alone...

And so on...

I Googled "justified violence" and come up with pages of oratory and lecture on how violence is never justified. Yet throughout our history, time and time again, we find moments where we may argue that it was the only option left.

Politics aside...is there a good fight for you? What would you die for? What do you care about so deeply that you would die or kill for it? Could you look at that 8 year old girl who defeated a kidnapper with a swift kick to the shins and tell her she did the wrong thing? That she is violent?

What about peace? What about placing our hearts in the space between ego and reaction to create an energy of light and love around us? What about manifesting the positive and allow the truth of oneness to pervade the world? Why do we always return to our most base, animal instinct and react with a growl, and lash out with a bite...

Are we evolving or not?

Is enlightenment to transcend the need to survive and begin to create a world that thrives on connectivity and trust? Is piety to live in a state that is beyond our animal nature?

If your loved ones were threatened with a violent death at the hands of a criminal or animal...what would you do?

What are your choices?
A) Defend them with your whole being
B) Pray for deliverance and use the moment to generate the light that transforms the world
C) Both

Both? Can you do both?

Which do you choose?

Do we really understand violence yet?

With love,
Aaron

Understanding violence

Warriors,

I first met my wife because her son was one of my martial arts students. He got in trouble at school for practicing his sword technique on the playground with a stick...alone, not threatening to anyone...but the teachers felt unsafe and he was sent to the principals office and his mother was called in because of his violent behavior.

He was 7 years old.

Any teacher that feels unsafe around a 7 year old shouldn't be a teacher.

Regardless, his mom called me and brought him to my adult class where we studied very intense techniques. She asked that I speak to him about his behavior at school.

I asked him, "Why did you get in trouble?"
Dylan said, "Because I was sword fighting on the playground."
I asked, "Who were you fighting?"
His face lit up, "I was St. Michael...I was battling the Dragon!"

His mom, who is now my wife, commented how no-one had bothered to ask him that question. Only judged him on being violent.

In that battle, raging in his mind...was he violent?

Consider this:
-A 12 year old boy broke the nose of a would-be kidnapper and got away...
-A 8 year old girl kicked a kidnapper in the shins and got away...
-The woman who owns my martial arts studio took on 2 kidnappers in a parking lot while the third one fled in the van they were going to put her in...the two kidnappers were hospitalized and all three were arrested and incarcerated...
-In WWII 72 million deaths total...with 416,800 American soldier deaths alone...

And so on...

I Googled "justified violence" and come up with pages of oratory and lecture on how violence is never justified. Yet throughout our history, time and time again, we find moments where we may argue that it was the only option left.

Politics aside...is there a good fight for you? What would you die for? What do you care about so deeply that you would die or kill for it? Could you look at that 8 year old girl who defeated a kidnapper with a swift kick to the shins and tell her she did the wrong thing? That she is violent?

What about peace? What about placing our hearts in the space between ego and reaction to create an energy of light and love around us? What about manifesting the positive and allow the truth of oneness to pervade the world? Why do we always return to our most base, animal instinct and react with a growl, and lash out with a bite...

Are we evolving or not?

Is enlightenment to transcend the need to survive and begin to create a world that thrives on connectivity and trust? Is piety to live in a state that is beyond our animal nature?

If your loved ones were threatened with a violent death at the hands of a criminal or animal...what would you do?

What are your choices?
A) Defend them with your whole being
B) Pray for deliverance and use the moment to generate the light that transforms the world
C) Both

Both? Can you do both?

Which do you choose?

Do we really understand violence yet?

With love,
Aaron
Warriors,

I first met my wife because her son was one of my martial arts students. He got in trouble at school for practicing his sword technique on the playground with a stick...alone, not threatening to anyone...but the teachers felt unsafe and he was sent to the principals office and his mother was called in because of his violent behavior.

He was 7 years old.

Any teacher that feels unsafe around a 7 year old shouldn't be a teacher.

Regardless, his mom called me and brought him to my adult class where we studied very intense techniques. She asked that I speak to him about his behavior at school.

I asked him, "Why did you get in trouble?"
Dylan said, "Because I was sword fighting on the playground."
I asked, "Who were you fighting?"
His face lit up, "I was St. Michael...I was battling the Dragon!"

His mom, who is now my wife, commented how no-one had bothered to ask him that question. Only judged him on being violent.

In that battle, raging in his mind...was he violent?

Consider this:
-A 12 year old boy broke the nose of a would-be kidnapper and got away...
-A 8 year old girl kicked a kidnapper in the shins and got away...
-The woman who owns my martial arts studio took on 2 kidnappers in a parking lot while the third one fled in the van they were going to put her in...the two kidnappers were hospitalized and all three were arrested and incarcerated...
-In WWII 72 million deaths total...with 416,800 American soldier deaths alone...

And so on...

I Googled "justified violence" and come up with pages of oratory and lecture on how violence is never justified. Yet throughout our history, time and time again, we find moments where we may argue that it was the only option left.

Politics aside...is there a good fight for you? What would you die for? What do you care about so deeply that you would die or kill for it? Could you look at that 8 year old girl who defeated a kidnapper with a swift kick to the shins and tell her she did the wrong thing? That she is violent?

What about peace? What about placing our hearts in the space between ego and reaction to create an energy of light and love around us? What about manifesting the positive and allow the truth of oneness to pervade the world? Why do we always return to our most base, animal instinct and react with a growl, and lash out with a bite...

Are we evolving or not?

Is enlightenment to transcend the need to survive and begin to create a world that thrives on connectivity and trust? Is piety to live in a state that is beyond our animal nature?

If your loved ones were threatened with a violent death at the hands of a criminal or animal...what would you do?

What are your choices?
A) Defend them with your whole being
B) Pray for deliverance and use the moment to generate the light that transforms the world
C) Both

Both? Can you do both?

Which do you choose?

Do we really understand violence yet?

With love,
Aaron